An Innocent Fashion (20 page)

“I think for twenty minutes it should be fine,” Clara replied with a forceful edge, an order this time, though still disguised as a suggestion. “I mean—we all deserve a break sometimes, and you work so hard, don't you?”

When Sabrina didn't immediately agree, Clara took a chal
lenging high-heeled step toward Sabrina's cubicle and cocked her head. “
Don't you?
” she repeated, a little sharply.

“I . . .” Sabrina recovered quickly. “Yes, I do work hard.” She gulped and looked at George. “George . . .” she trailed off, and the next moment they were pressed together, springing toward the door. Sabrina murmured, “Thank you,” to Clara, and George echoed with a mumble of the same syllables.

The door shut behind them. Silence. I looked left and right, but there was nobody else—I was alone with Clara.

“All right now,” Clara said, sitting right down into George's chair. She crossed her legs, and the lace from her thigh-high stockings peeked out from under her pencil skirt with daunting refinement. She leaned forward. If, from a distance, her calligraphic mannerisms had an air of spontaneous grace, close proximity attested to their premeditated precision. Every muscle in her face seemed to move in accordance with a grand design.

“Ethan . . . it's Ethan,
riiight
?” She spoke with honeyed politeness, like a Georgia socialite preparing to resolve a minor catering detail before a charity ball. “I thought that after another week or so, this conversation would not be necessary, but—I think it would actually be better to nip this in the bud.”

My stomach plummeted as I wracked my brain for a memory of my incriminating offense. In such a brief time, how had I managed to offend
Régine
's most congenial editor?

“I have to ask you,” she continued, “and please excuse my directness, but have you ever had a real job before?”

I shook my head in terror.

Clara responded, “Well, do you like working at
Régine
?”

“Oh, yes!” I rushed in. “Did I give you the impression
that . . . ?” Distressed to think I had somehow conveyed ungratefulness in my brief tenure, my eyebrows wrenched in overcompensatory earnestness. “It's my dream to be here—I'm learning so much. It's just amazing.”

Clara smiled gently. “That is wonderful news.” She considered for a moment how best to redirect my enthusiastic reply. “And when you say that you are learning a lot, does that include anything in terms of rules? That is, have you learned any of the
unwritten
rules that constitute our code of conduct here?”

The unbearable strain in her face had me on the verge of hyperventilation. “Whatever it is I've done, Clara—I mean, Ms. Bellamy—ma'am . . . I just—I'm so sorry. I can't tell you how much it means for me to be here, and to jeopardize that in any way . . .”

“Don't be afraid,” she soothed me. “You haven't jeopardized anything. As I'm sure you've guessed from my accent, I'm not exactly from here either. I understand what it's like to not know the rules.” Her generous circumvention of my embarrassment rendered her powers of graciousness complete. “Let me put it this way,” she said. “To be at
Régine
is a privilege and, as with any privilege that may be conferred onto you in life, there are many corresponding rules to ensure that your privilege is balanced with the proportionate share of responsibility.” Her palm flowered out toward me. “For example, you wouldn't say hello to someone you didn't know on the elevator, would you?”

I gulped, and my head twitched. Of course I already broke this rule on a regular basis, trying to initiate conversations with eternally uninterested passengers.

“Of course you wouldn't,” she filled in on my behalf, saving me again. “For all you know, they could be the CEO of Hoffman-
Lynch Publications, and that wouldn't exactly be appropriate, would it? For an intern to distract the leading executive of our company? Nor would you leave the office for the day with tasks left undone, or let an e-mail go unanswered, or take a bathroom break without notifying your colleagues.” I ran a mental scroll of these unwritten tenets, of whose existence I had been woefully ignorant.

“I understand Sabrina has already explained,” she continued, “that you should never interrupt a conversation between your superiors, and by the same token you should
never
wear an outfit which is inappropriate for your rank.”

I gasped with realization and glanced down at myself. Head-to-toe turquoise suit, with a flower-print shirt and a pink tie: my boldest outfit yet. In merely three weeks at
Régine
my style had flourished to peacock-worthy proportions as, day after day, new levels of demeaning office drudgery increased my need to feel dignified, worthy, and unique. My cheeks burned with self-consciousness, conveying my rush of insight to Clara.

“I don't mean to embarrass you,” Clara said, “but you are an intern. You are here to learn, and to serve others, not to draw attention from the work that is being done.”

“I'm sorry . . . I never thought—I just—” The words flooded out, then struck a barrier: I now hesitated to state the explanation that to me was so obvious.

“Go on,” she said. “Let's discuss this. That's why Sabrina and George have been dismissed—because this conversation is private.”

Realizing that Clara had made such a gracious effort to protect my dignity—the dignity of an intern, whose rank was so beneath her own—sent the guilt free-falling through me. Suddenly
my histrionic wardrobe seemed hugely presumptuous, and any defense of it a self-indulgent mistake. I slowly opened my mouth; felt my tongue unstick. “I just thought—since this is a fashion magazine . . .” The words were juvenile, and I knew it before they left me. “I thought my style would be appreciated.” I was disgusted with myself, but Clara matched my unworthiness with unfailing sympathy.

She crossed her legs on the other side, and placed her hands calmly on her knee. “Yes,” she admitted, “but if you haven't noticed, you are also an adult, and this a corporation, and in a corporation we occupy specific roles, with specific ways that we must speak, act, and dress. The magazine, unfortunately, is not real life.
Real life
is the corporate ladder on which this magazine is built, and the billions of dollars which flow in and out of its pages—a system it is our obligatory duty to uphold.”

Saliva bobbed in my throat.

“This is simply the world we live in, my dear,” Clara stated. “You'll learn that lesson here, you'll learn it anywhere. Do you think the worlds of fashion, music, fine art—however brilliant and alive they might seem—are exempt from the cold laws of business and the bottom line? On the contrary, they are ruled by them. Aesthetic beauty is an industry. Fantasies are produced to be packaged and purchased.”

There was no malevolence in her voice, just an acceptance of general truth. She had herself acquired this essential knowledge long ago, and now she was simply passing it on to me, like a patient tutor relating to her pupil that the letter A comes before B comes before C—even though who knew why?

“The bottom line for you is, in these industries there are rules, and rank. One day, if you are successful, you can wear
what you want—look at Edmund—but for now, you're are at the bottom of a very long chain of command, and if you keep dressing like some kind of butterfly you will never see the top of it.”

A terrible, rosy-fingered realization seized me, my head suddenly filled with the sound I was convinced I'd heard when I stepped into
Régine
's offices for the first time—the faint tinkling of people trapped in jars . . . And I understood.

Clara pulled me up from the plunging silence. “This doesn't mean you can't dress well,” she said. “I would suggest, if you want to wear a suit—I don't know, a gray suit, or navy blue—something
neutral
. But a turquoise suit is much too bold. You may feel like you are simply expressing yourself, but unfortunately it's not your
role
to express yourself.”

I struggled for a response. I could have never guessed that, of all the possible misdemeanors at
Régine
, the ultimate cause of my incrimination would be my wardrobe, which I had cultivated for so long thinking it would help me earn admittance to its hallowed halls.

She offered a helpless shrug of consolation; the natural order had been established long before her. “I suppose, if you must wear color, how about a nice tie?” She let her hand flutter open, to show what a great compromise she considered this sartorial suggestion. “Otherwise, how about just a nice neutral sweater . . . or a neutral—anything?” Seemingly recognizing the totalitarian ring in her own words, she made an effort to lighten my sentence
.
“It just can't be anything that . . .” She put her delicate hand over her chest, long manicured fingers spread, and jolted her wrist as though receiving an electric shock. “Nothing that . . .”

“Stands out,” I finished.

“
Exaaaaactly
,” she said with a single extended nod. Her chin
gravitated upward very slowly, and I was reminded of a slow-motion playback I had once seen in Driver's Ed, of an accident victim's head whipping back upon collision before,
smash!
, the video sped up, and he went flying through the windshield.

“Do you have anything to wear?” she asked. “Anything at home that's not . . . ?” Elaboration was unnecessary; she knew well enough that in my flamboyant wardrobe there could be little which would meet the standard of neutrality that she was proposing. Unperturbed, Clara rose to her feet, patting out the wrinkles on the front of her pencil skirt. “Come with me—quietly, please.”

I followed her with mummified stiffness through the white closet door. She swept through the fashion editors' cubicle, dipping her fingers into a ceramic dish—
clink
—and, without a note of acknowledgment to her colleagues there, continued to glide down the hallway, the glint of a key between her fingers. I glanced behind us, but neither Christine nor Will had noticed the subtle pilferage. We passed a dozen wordless cubicles, through a deafening air of dutiful semiconsciousness.

The key fit into the lock on an unmarked door in the farthest corner of the office, and Clara ushered me inside. The door shut behind us. Darkness. Then she flicked on a dim overhead light, and we were standing in a walk-in closet: two garment racks, and a built-in shelf overflowing with bags and shoes, surrounded by towers of plastic crates that contained a hodgepodge of hats, gloves, and sunglasses cases.

“This is where we keep leftovers,” Clara explained, “both men's and women's clothes and accessories that, for one reason or another, were never returned to PR. It happens more than you would think, with so many deliveries going in and out for shoots,
and sometimes they overlook things. After several seasons we donate them for a tax write-off, or they get put on consignment toward a corporate account.”

Shrouded in shadow, she turned and assessed me at an arm's length. “You're a thirty-inch waist, from the looks of it? Excuse my imprecise methods,” she said, and placed her hands around my waist. I lifted my arms as she slid her hands up. “You can relax,” she instructed, giving me a light squeeze around my chest. “A thirty-eight-inch chest, I'd guess, with a fifteen-inch neck? And your shoes . . .” She required half a glance in the dark to determine—“ten and a half, right?”

I opened my mouth to confirm the accuracy of her estimations, but my input was outweighed by Clara's expertise. Clacking one hanger against the other in quick succession, she shuffled through the selection of men's dress shirts and emerged with a black Armani button-down.

“This will be a good start,” she said. “You can never go wrong with black—or Armani.” She hung the shirt on the front of the rack. “You'll need a suit, since you like them so much.” Another
clack-clack-clack
, and she was holding up a three-piece charcoal-gray suit. “How do you like this?”

I ran my hand over its sculpted shoulder. “It's gorgeous,” I said. The luxurious wool felt cool and new, and the stitched pockets had never been cut open. A lustrous black tag on the interior of the jacket's neck read
Dior Homme
.

“Consider this your uniform,” she replied. “You can wear it with and without the vest—it's versatile.”

My fingers curled longingly around the delicate sleeve. “You mean—I get to wear this?”

“Yes,” she said. She placed the suit beside the black shirt.
“You might have to hem the pants for a more perfect fit, but otherwise—it's as good as yours.”

A moment of stunned silence passed over me as I was struck by the magnitude of her benevolence. “Clara, I—I don't know how to thank you.”

She leaned over into the shelves and selected a pair of chocolate brown Louis Vuitton oxfords. “Try these. Men's sample size for shoes is an eleven, but Vuittons run small. If they're not right, you can take a pair of Ferragamos, and either way you can thank me with your utmost discretion.” She straightened up. “Now, listen to me: You'll change in here, please, and if anybody notices that you are wearing something new, you give them a strange look. That Ethan—the Ethan they remember—that Ethan
never existed
.”

A small twinge rang through my chest at the thought of the self-effacement that her proposition required.

“Once you've changed, you'll put the suit that you are wearing in this garment bag”—she pointed—“and before you reenter the fashion closet, you'll hang the bag on the coat rack by my desk. Then when you leave for the night, you'll pick it up and never speak of this again.”

“Really, I—” I glanced at my new Dior suit hanging there, and choked on a rush of gratitude. “I don't know what to say.”